Not quite the same thing, but you can certainly see the seeds of modern blogging: news, politics, political organizing, gossip, and online hookups.

Here Come the Networkers

A new communications medium gives birth to its own stars ike Greenly had been trying for weeks to interview Ed Koch about New York City’s handling of the AIDS epidemic when he finally buttonholed the mayor on the steps of city hall. “There I was,” Greenly typed into his portable computer soon afterward, “cheek to jowl with His Honor.” Two hours later he had plugged his Tandy Model 100 into a telephone line and dispatched the first installment of his exclusive interview.

Ever dreamed of converting your rough sketches into fully proportioned finished drawings at the stroke of a pen? Well, someone did. IBM now has an experimental system that does just that—courtesy of a computer.

The 8813 was built with you, the professional, in mind. It quickly and easily processes cost estimates, payrolls, accounts, inventory, patient/client records and much more. You can write reports, briefs, and proposals on the 8813’s typewriter keyboard, see them on the video screen, and instantly correct, revise, or print them.

I’m not too sure Adam Osborne was the best person to get business advice from…

…FROM THE FOUNTAINHEAD

By Adam Osborne

The responses I have received following my warnings against paying for goods in advance lead me to believe that a very serious problem exists within the microcomputer industry.

It seems to be the rule rather than the exception that companies big or small will hold your money for months at a time, and in a few cases they may never deliver anything. Moreover, a number of microcomputer hardware manufacturers, including some of the largest, are staying out of bankruptcy only by exercising day-to-day financial agility.

A REGULAR ration of electric current, with occasional dessert of a little oil now and then, is all that this tabulating machine, shown above, requires to do the work of ten persons. A combination bookkeeper, adding machine, card sorter, cash register and computator all in one, the machine is operated by three people.

Sadly, this location now contains a yuppie gardening store. I think NW 23rd street in Portland would be infinitely more awesome if dilithium Press still existed.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL COMPUTER ZTORE

We could have run an ad that said “buy your bogks directly froå us” but that’s not to your advùntage. If you look at our books1at a computer store you can decide which ones meet your needs. Þe know that you will decide on üwo or three and actually use them. That’s our goal, use! The moje you know about microcomputers the more you’ll¡want to know and that is good fnr you, for your local computer ótore and for us.

At a recent Toshiba press conference I noticed a stack of mini-hi-fi components [PS, Jan.] with a microphone attached. But the mike, I learned, wasn’t plugged in to record music. Instead, it lets you store 15 verbal commands in a microcomputer memory. After that, the hi-fi system responds only to your voice, enabling you to perform 19 functions—operating a cassette deck orally, controlling volume, or selecting tuner channels, for example.